Third party brands will surelly solve that issue. Many third party PS4 controllers lack all the features of the Sony controller, like sound output or mouse trackpad.

This reddit thread might be worth reading if you have the time.

https://www.reddit.com/r/cemu/comments/jtd2jn/dualsense_5_with_cemu_and_motion_controls/

.Keys, actually, I wasn't trying to debate you either; I just simply was trying to understand your argument, because the specific reason you gave didn't seem to support it, so I thought I might have misinterpreted something. I believe that a great controller should have a ton of features, because even if not every game uses all of them, different games could use different ones, and that way, it could be used how you prefer for each game. And then you can customize your controls however you want. If the game doesn't allow that, then that's a pathetic game, and I can't believe there are even still games with that limitation, because it's incredibly stupid. As for fixing it if it breaks, I think most people don't know how to do that, anyway, and would just have to get a new one, regardless. Yes they are expensive, but if they were made very durable, and well-designed with the best features from the start, then you'd never have to replace one. If anything, I don't think the PS5 controllers have enough features, and could be far-better designed, but that's a whole other can of worms. But I like your idea of having different controllers with different qualities and prices.

Dark_art_, thanks for the information. I don't have much to say in reply, but I read it, and I'll look into that reddit link too.

EDIT: But I don't see why Sony doesn't just make their own official API for running their controllers on PC cross-platform. It wouldn't be very hard for them to do (I mean, Novint and Razer did it), but it would cause games to be developed for it, and people to buy more of the controllers to use for those games.

No one wants to code for a specific piece of hardware. The point of a driver is so you don't do this. The API for an input device needs to come from the OS.

To do otherwise is chaos.

Yeah, but it's not really a specific piece of hardware, because it would apply to ALL PS5 controllers, and they're very common and popular, so they're not just some niche junk. And once the API exists, more manufacturers could create controllers compatible with it, which would give them more incentive to make PS5-comptaible controllers, thus boosting the popularity of PS5 even more. Besides, I gave two examples (Novint Falcon and Razer Hydra) which did code for specific hardware, the reason being that they were incompatible with pre-existing APIs, due to exceeding their capabilities, which is the same thing that has happened with PS controllers compared to DirectInput and XInput, thus justifying the relatively slight extra effort to do so, with the huge payoff that incredibly awesome controllers would finally be available for PC.

Or the alternative could be that Microsoft could just make a new, improved API that would have those capabilities, but perhaps they wouldn't want to, because it would give Sony more power and they'd become worse competition, accordingly. But then I wonder why Microsoft hasn't implemented motion sensitivity in the new XBox models (aside from Connect, which has been around a while, anyway), or have they? I don't really keep up with console stuff.

That's an amazingly ignorant statement. It is a specific piece of hardware.

The HP DeskJet 4155e is common too. No one is going to write specifically for its imaginary API that does not exist because it should not exist for PC just like a PS5 gamepad API does not and should not exist.

The OS/platform needs to provide that.

How is a PS5 controller a specific piece of hardware, considering that there are numerous different brands and models of controllers compatible for PS5? And in any case, I don't think Microsoft (which is a competitor to Sony) has much incentive to make an API for PS5 controllers, but Sony would have an incentive to do so.

EDIT: And actually, a good example of this kind of thing is XInput, because that was written specifically for XBox-compatible controllers, even for running them on PC, but has since become compatible with many PC controllers as well, which could also happen for a PS5 API. And you're still overlooking the fact that I gave examples of when this has actually been done: Novint Falcon, Razer Hydra, and here's another good one actually: 3DConnexion SpaceMouse (though that could actually be made compatible with DirectInput, and is when using emulation, but it still has its own API anyway). And I'm not saying it isn't ideal to have one API for everything, but it's not always feasible, because neither DirectInput nor XInput provide motion-sensitive controls, such as Oculus Touch (yet another example of a custom API).

The fact that you even need to ask this means you are not knowledgeable enough to understand the answer. Because it should be self evident.

Anyway the point is that no game dev is going to want to bother with checking for a specific library to be present and then dynamically loading it and then coding for it. There's no financial upside when 99% of the user base won't have it anyway.

Now if the platform provides for it, which I believe Linux does, then that's more tolerable and you might consider it. You still might prefer to stick with features all input devices can replicate, but you might consider it.

Yes, that's where you wrote an absurd question.


Anyone that cares enough can program against the hardware directly if they choose to.

On Linux you would use ioctl. On Windows I believe they have something called DeviceIoControl which provides something similar.

You should look at SDL. They likely have solved this already.

Alright, I'll try that, thanks. But my point was that:

- PS5 controllers are NOT a specific device, but rather a whole category of devices of different models by different brands, which are all compatible with PS5.

- It's really no different than XInput, because if a PS5 API would be for a specific device, then how can you not say the same about XInput, since it was written for XBox controllers?

They are. That's why you need to qualify it with PS5 instead of just saying joystick. Because there's nothing general about it. It's a very specific device. This is true no matter how many 3rd parties copy the design.

So if there were 900 billion companies that each made 400 trillion devices that were all various PS5 controllers, some shaped like regular controllers, others like joysticks, flight yokes, steering wheels, arcade-style joysticks, and various other experimental devices, it would still be a specific device?! That's absurd!

And how is an XBox controller not a specific device then? Because it has its own API, and even if it's compatible with other things too, that was done after the fact, because they were later made compatible with it, so I don't see why the same thing couldn't be done for PS5. The only difference is really that Sony doesn't make a PC OS.

Yes an XBOX controller is a specific device too. The maker just also happens to make an OS and was more or less responsible for making gamepads mainstream on PC.

Now you can either continue making your silly semantic arguments on a gaming forum and accomplishing nothing or you can write some code. Either way I'm done with you.

Well then I guess I get the last word. You've just proven me right by admitting that Microsoft did the same thing that Sony could easily do, if they cared to do so, and it would benefit them, as well as many users, but they just don't bother.